In its most recent Infrastructure Report Card, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated the nation's infrastructure needs at a staggering $1.6 trillion over five years.

"Despite considerable new revenue commitments by local governments, which out-pace state and federal government efforts, the nation's infrastructure needs — both preservation of existing assets and system expansions — are growing much faster than public resource commitments," the United States Conference of Mayors noted in August.

Soon after November's record-low drop in housing starts, President-elect Barack Obama spoke of expanding the scope of his economic recovery plan and seeking to create or save 3 million jobs in the next two years. Little more than a week ago, an Obama adviser told CBS' Face the Nation that the emerging plan could cost "$675 billion to $775 billion" — up from a $600 billion estimate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) gave two weeks prior.

As part of his broad plan to revive a flailing economy, Obama's administration will focus on five main areas of spending and tax breaks: infrastructure, health, education, energy and support for the poor and the unemployed.

The infrastructure-rebuilding plan is likely to be a major part of his economic stimulus package, which could include potentially hundreds of billions of dollars for infrastructure projects.

Last month, Obama pledged to "create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s."

The sorts of jobs the incoming U.S. president proposes to create involve construction work on roads, mass transit projects, weatherization of government buildings and installation of information technology in medical facilities, among others. By investing heavily in our national infrastructure, jobs should be created for building, repairing, upgrading and maintaining public infrastructure — protecting our investment. Federal dollars spent to create these jobs should quickly begin giving back to the economy.

The National Air Transport Association, which represents aviation businesses, said $30 billion spent on transportation infrastructure alone would create or sustain 834,000 jobs. (Source: USA Today)

(The construction sector, including the many professions and fields associated with it, makes up one of the larger components of the U.S. economy. For 2007, the U.S. Bureau of Labor estimates that 7.6 million Americans worked in construction alone. Imagine the number of jobs created and sustained if tens of billions of dollars were newly put into redeveloping the nation's bridges, roads, transit, dams and levees, airports, waterways, et al.)

At a press conference last month, Obama gave a few more details about his plan for federal spending toward infrastructure, pledging that the program would go beyond "roads and bridges" to other programs with long-term payoffs for taxpayers.

That list included the now-familiar broadband Internet build-out, getting medical records into electronic form and making our economy more energy efficient ("creating a new energy economy").

In his Dec. 6 radio address on the economy, Obama stated:

[W]e will launch a massive effort to make public buildings more energy-efficient. Our government now pays the highest energy bill in the world. We need to change that. We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs. ... [M]y economic recovery plan will launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen. We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient, and put new computers in our classrooms.

Obama's advocacy of a historic infrastructure spending plan has drawn forth no shortage of groups looking for some of that funding. "Big business, including the steel industry, is lining up to support President-elect Barack Obama's plan to stimulate the economy with the biggest spending spree on roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects since the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration," Purchasing.com reports.

In the lead-up to this month's debate on whether to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to revive the economy, the National Governors Association identified $136 billion in infrastructure projects it says should be in the stimulus. The association's list consists mostly of transit construction but also includes port expansions and renewable energy programs. Likewise, last month the U.S. Conference of Mayors released a massive report that is a kind of wish list of some 11,391 infrastructure projects they hope to press ahead with.

"There's a general consensus that there will be more infrastructure spending," John Skowron, a federal and state consultant at Deloitte, said to Government Technology last month. "In the technology age, it may look different than the [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] infrastructure spending of solely bridges and highways. You could start to see spending within infrastructure from an IT perspective — next-generation networks, expanding broadband, looking at cyber-security."

Not only would federal money to local governments come with a "use it or lose it" clause under Obama's plans, but "the president-elect will also propose to direct some money to public and private partnerships for major projects like a national energy grid intended to harness alternative energy sources such as wind power," the New York Times reports advisers as having said.

Yet while McKinsey Quarterly recently estimated that private investment funds raised $105 billion for infrastructure projects worldwide from 2006 to mid-2007, the U.S. is roughly "20 years behind in developing, repairing and maintaining its transportation infrastructure," one engineer and bridge expert told Logistics Management in 2007. He noted that structural problems identified in the late 1970s have not been fixed by "any more than 3 percent to 5 percent."

That is why the infrastructure-rebuilding plan will likely remain a top initiative for the incoming U.S. president — and one that the new Congress is expected to tackle early upon its return today.

Earlier/Related

This Country is Falling Apart. Literally

U.S. Infrastructure in the Emergency Lane

Resources

Infrastructure Report Card
The American Society of Civil Engineers, 2005 (updated 2008)

National Action Agenda on Infrastructure for the Next President of the United States
The U.S. Conference of Mayors, Aug. 13-14, 2008

Housing Starts Plunge 18.9% to Record Low
by Rex Nutting
MarketWatch, Dec. 16, 2008

Economist: Obama Stimulus Not Enough
CBS News Face the Nation, Dec. 28, 2008

Remarks of President-elect Barack Obama - Radio Address on the Economy
Change.gov, Dec. 6, 2008

Groups Send Wish Lists for Economic Bill
by John Fritze
USA Today, Dec. 28, 2008

Governors Host Historic Meeting with Incoming Presidential Administration
National Governors Association, Dec. 2, 2008

Ready to Go: Jobs and Infrastructure Projects
The U.S. Conference of Mayors, Dec. 19, 2008

U.S. Mayor Say Local Infrastructure Projects Are Ready-to-Go
The U.S. Conference of Mayors, Dec. 8, 2008

Stimulus Competition Grows as Companies Vie for Funds
by Jonathan D. Salant and Kristin Jensen
MarketWatch, Dec. 16, 2008

Big Business Backs Infrastructure-Rebuilding Plan
by Tom Stundza
Purchasing.com, Dec. 10, 2008

Video: Infrastructure Spending Could Halt Falling Steel Prices
Purchasing.com, Dec. 14-20, 2008

Technology May Play Key Role in Obama Infrastructure Plan
by Matt Williams and Vander Veen
Government Technology, Dec. 29, 2008

Video: Pres.-Elect Barack Obama Press Conference on Veterans Affairs Nominee
C-SPAN, Dec. 7, 2008

As Outlook Dims, Obama Expands Recovery Plans
by Jackie Calmes
The New York Times, Dec. 20, 2008

How Investors Can Get More Out of Infrastructure
by Robert N. Palter, Jay Walder, and Stian Westlake
The McKinsey Quarterly, February 2008

Transportation Infrastructure: U.S. Senate Approves $1 Billion Amendment for Bridge Improvements
by Jeff Berman
Logistics Management, Sept. 11, 2007

Additional

Barack Obama/Joe Biden Economic Agenda

Wikipedia: National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank

Obama, Governors Share Plans for Boosting Public-Works Jobs
by Alexandra Marks
The Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 3, 2008

Obama's Single Most Important Reform
by Michael Lind
Salon.com, Dec. 9, 2008

The Obama Boomtowns
by Joshua Zumbrun
Forbes, Dec. 15, 2008

Obama: Transportation Can Get Economy Moving
by Joan Lowy
The Associated Press, Dec. 12, 2008